The Caldwell family: Clif, Julie, Sydney, Sally, Harrison, Hudson

         I have been a Christian since I was nine years old. I have loved the Lord and tried to live for Him since then. He has seen me through some troubling times. He has grown me up through some mistakes and bad decisions. He has directed my life at every turn as far back as I can see. He has shown His mercy in my stupidity and loved me in His great forgiveness. He has pulled me many times from quicksand of my own making. He has welcomed me back when I begged for another chance and loved me through it all. 
        His Word has become an anchor for me, alive and working in my heart and life, a salve for my wounds and a joy in my sorrow. I have literally slept with it before, knowing it was the only place I could find peace. 
        He has allowed me to have music as a refuge for my spirit and a place to worship Him freely. 
        My husband, Clif, and I went through a terrible time after some unwise business decisions. Many mornings, I found myself unable to rest, tossing and turning, my mind racing. I’d run to God’s Word and, very often, find myself singing hymns at the piano at 4:00 in the morning, very softly, of course.
       The Lord has always been a part of my life. My parents are very godly people and raised me that way. My father was a preacher. I grew up in small Baptist churches, where my family was basically the choir, the Sunday school teachers, the music leader, the piano player, and the preacher. I have always loved church, the people of the church, the music, the activities. 
        Music has always played an important role in my life and continues to do so. My Mother and Daddy have always sung together and dragged all five of us kids to sing with them many times. But I had never sung a solo until I got into high school. I had planned to be a coach and a teacher. I wanted to play sports and go to Clemson on an athletic scholarship. That was my plan. In my senior year of high school, I broke my arm playing basketball. I was in a pageant. My talent in the pageant was playing the piano, but I had to change my talent because I couldn’t play with a broken arm. So I decided I was going to sing a song. I won, and that’s when I started to fall in love with singing again.
       I went to Columbia College on a music scholarship and continued there for my master’s degree in music. It was while at Columbia College that I got to know the Caldwell family, and their son, Clif, in particular, caught my eye. Clif’s Dad, Dr. James Caldwell, is a Ph.D. in music and also a Baptist minister. He was the Chairman of the Music Department there. Clif’s sister went to Columbia College and was a music major, too. We became friends, and Clif was dating another friend of mine. He finally saw the light, and, after he graduated from Wofford, he asked me out. I had another year of college to go, and the Lord kept Clif out of medical school for a year so he could finally figure out that he needed to marry me. He did finally come around to that decision, and we were married in 1987 in Columbia. 
        We moved to Charleston, where Clif was in medical school. We quickly got involved in Citadel Square Baptist Church and learned how to rub pennies together to make ends meet. We learned that dried peas need to soak overnight before you can eat them. We ate a lot of peanut butter sandwiches and rolled pennies to get an ice cream sandwich at the corner store. We learned that credit cards have to be paid back and rent needs to be paid on time. The Lord gave us some wonderful years of learning during that time, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
       Clif finished his fourth year of medical school in Columbia area hospitals, and we moved from Charleston during the week that Hugo hit. Thankfully, we were mostly moved out and didn’t lose too much of our meager belongings. I worked as a youth and music director in Gilbert, South Carolina during that time, and we waited to see where the Lord would take us for residency. We ended up in Greenwood, South Carolina, my birthplace, and Clif began the long, arduous task of internship and residency. It was during that time that Sydney, our oldest daughter, was born. Sally and Harrison came soon after, during two years while we were fulfilling an Air Force commitment in Sumter at Shaw Air Force Base. Yes, two years and two babies. I now had three children ages three and under and a husband who was working 100 hours a week. Those were tough days. I didn’t know if I would make it through some days. I look back now and just see a fog, a very tired fog. 
        It was also during this time that doctors discovered a small benign tumor while I was pregnant with our son Harrison. They looked at it carefully but determined it was a common type and would probably go away after the pregnancy. Clif was discharged in 1995, and we headed to Easley. He was going to work in the emergency room at Cannon Memorial Hospital in Pickens.
       We joined Rock Springs Baptist Church, ‘the big church on the corner’, soon after we came to Easley and quickly got involved.
       I had come from a big family, and it wasn’t long before I started thinking about another child and started working on Clif to think that way. Harrison was two, and I wanted at least one more before I turned 35. After a routine doctor visit, it was discovered that the tumor had grown to be the size of a grapefruit. This concerned the doctors, and they decided that a pregnancy would be dangerous for the baby and possibly me, too.
       We tried several treatments to shrink it. I went every 20 to 30 days for a huge shot in my abdomen to try to get that thing to go down. It was still benign, but seemed to be growing, and nothing seemed to help. It was determined by my doctor at the time that nothing short of removal would help with the constant pain and other problems. This meant a hysterectomy and no more babies for me. I remember the day he told me that. I wept so hard all the way home. I couldn’t believe it. I begged God to intervene and take that thing away. He didn’t. The day before my surgery was to take place, the hospital called and wanted to know if we knew that our insurance was not going to pay for the surgery. We decided to wait for a better time for us.
       A month or so later, I was pregnant. Again, God intervened and knew something I didn’t. Amazing. The pregnancy was so easy, and the whole time, the baby was fine. There was some concern that the tumor would continue to grow and could hurt the baby. The doctors had even said I would never even get pregnant because of where the tumor was. They were wrong. Although I love my personal doctor, I’m glad the Great Physician knows all.
       In the early morning of February 8, 1997, I woke up with a tremendous pain in my side. Clif was at work at the hospital, and I got up thinking it would ease up. It didn’t, and I knew something was wrong. I called him, and he came home immediately, and we headed to the hospital. The tumor had become infected, and I was bleeding internally.
       The baby had to come out right then. They took me to emergency surgery. Hudson was born and was perfect, but I wasn’t. The last thing I remember was seeing my baby pass over my head, and then nothing. They were going to try to remove the tumor, but they were afraid that I would bleed to death, so they left it, hoping it would get better and later have surgery to remove it.
       I woke up about 16 hours later, wondering what in the world was going on. No baby, only tubes, and I looked down to see that my feet looked like balloons with toes. I couldn’t move at all. My body had swollen to well over 200 pounds in fluid. My kidneys had shut down. My heart was doing all kinds of weird things. I couldn’t move, and I wanted my baby. I really don’t remember much of that hospital stay except the disappointment of the labs never coming back good enough for me to go home. They were kind enough to let Hudson stay with me, and my mother slept there and took care of him for me.
       It was during that time, a span of about 10 weeks, that I learned that my God must be enough. Don’t get me wrong. I had friends and family everywhere, but something about not being able to move on your own, not even being able to get up on your own, makes you realize that nothing in this world can fill everything you need. Clif was distant and didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to tell him to do, either. It was a very lonely time for me, but the Lord was there. I would lie in bed hearing my baby cry, knowing I couldn’t get up to get him.
       My body continued to be diseased, and it was determined that the only thing to do was take a chance at surgery to remove the tumor and the diseased area. They did the surgery, and I immediately began to heal. After about three months, I was able to get up alone and get my baby during the night. I had to rely on others. I had to rely on faith that this was within His will and that He knew. I felt prayers of others. I couldn’t pray without falling asleep because of the drugs. I knew He was there, and He told me to trust Him. I had nothing else. I was a very independent, strong woman, reduced to total dependence on others and the God I knew. Until He was all I had, I didn’t learn that He was all I needed.
I began the slow healing and strengthening process, and our lives returned again to the hectic family living we were used to. That time in my life was not what I expected, but He was there through it all. Clif and I have been through some rough times, but He has been there. I expect we’ll have many more.
The kids are growing up, but they all know the Lord now. My life is busy, busy, busy.
       Storms are a part of this life that turn us to Him. That’s exactly what that storm in my life did, and that’s exactly where I want to stay.
       In the last couple of years, Clif and I have faced another big storm. We lost some investments in what we thought would be our future. It was taken from us in a terrible way.
        I know that many of you have faced storms, much bigger than anything I can know. Some of you have, some of you will, and some of you are in the middle of one now. A big part of my life at home is spent in the kitchen and the laundry room. One day, a particularly strong wind blew my feet right out from under me and left me screaming in pain into my washing machine, literally. I flew into an out-of-control fit of emotional upheaval that I have never experienced before. I could feel the dark clouds gather over me. My mind whirled. I blamed anyone I could think of and yelled at God, into the washing machine. After many tears and a permanent press cycle, I gathered my beaten emotions off the floor and stayed in a depressed way for a few days, going through the motions, but never quite leaving the clouds. I had taken my eyes off the compass and forgotten the direction I should be going. I gazed, not into the eyes of my Savior, but into the steely, accusing, hopeless eyes of the oppressor and my own circumstances, and there I sat. 
        God’s Word promises us that we’ll have tribulations. We have no excuses to think we won’t. But still they seem to take us by surprise. I knew to ask close friends to pray for me. I knew to saturate myself in God’s Word. But I can’t say it was gone in a flash. I reminded myself of exactly who He is and who He has made me. He promised to be my refuge. He promised to be my strength. He promised to lift me up. He promised to comfort the depressed. He calls me His beloved. He promised to speak His blessings over me simply because I’m His. Exodus 16:10 says, They looked, and there was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud. Not when the cloud is gone, but He was in the cloud. He was there the whole time. 
        An unnamed seaman once said, “In fierce storms, we must do one thing, for there is only one way to survive: We must put the ship in a certain position and keep her there.” It may be that you are sailing sunny skies, holding lightly to the wheel. It may be that the clouds are gathering. It may be that you are hitting 80-foot waves and can’t see anything around you. It may be that you have lost all your strength and can’t hold on any longer. It seems that that is the time when we finally look up and find that we’ve found the One who we’ve been looking for the whole time, and that’s the Lord Jesus Christ. He was there all the time, very close, waiting for us to look in His direction. Hold it there. Keep it in the right direction. 
        My life has really been a storybook life. My parents were Christians. My grandparents were Christians. And Clif’s, too. If the world would look at our life, they would say, she has it pretty good. But sin is sin, and good girls are just as lost as bad girls. God doesn’t look at the outside and what I’ve got here in this world. He looks at my heart. My heart was black with sin, until the Lord Jesus Christ came in, at a young age, I admit, and took all that away. I can choose to keep following Him, or I can choose my own way. I choose Him.
      I want to challenge you. It doesn’t matter what age you are. There is always another step of faith. Get ready to take it. Get that ship pointed in the right direction, and hold it.